


evermore (bound without chains)

by froggiegirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Harry and Voldemort have history, Horcruxes, Kid Fic, Non-Linear Narrative, Voldemort is Not Good, graphic descriptions of parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:42:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29113974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggiegirl/pseuds/froggiegirl
Summary: Voldemort realizes what Harriet Potter is in the Little Hangleton graveyard. He is struck by how chillingly exposed his Horcrux is. What results is a plot to bind her ever closer.Where this leaves Harri: alone in a remote cottage after the Final Battle. Voldemort's solution to isolation and loneliness is not what she expects.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 24
Kudos: 185





	1. Voldemort's Horcrux

**Halloween, 1981**

This is how it starts: a man and a woman are murdered. Their baby stares up at a Dark Lord with emerald green eyes. A jet of matching green light hits the girl, his supposed downfall, and then...

Pain.

Or

It starts with Tom Riddle ripping his soul apart for the first time. The death of Myrtle Warren. The vindictive knowledge that he is now immortal and at a mere fifteen years of age has performed magic that would make grown men shudder.

Better yet

It starts with Severus Snape listening in on the Divination interviews in the Hog’s Head. The words “The one who will cause the downfall of the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…” ringing in his ears as he is pulled from the pub. He brings the news to his Master not knowing that he has condemned Lily Evans to death.

Once he does know, it is no hard task to confess to Albus Dumbledore _everything_. He begs Dumbledore to protect the Potters, to hide them away where the Dark Lord will never find them. Only Dumbledore can keep Lily safe from the Dark Lord. No other wizard can dream of being strong enough to stand against him.

In his desperation, Severus consoles himself that the Longbottoms have also just had a baby. This one a pureblood boy, heir to a Nobel house. The Dark Lord will want both children dead, but surely he will go after the Longbottoms before the Potters.

Severus Snape is wrong.

It is Harriet Potter who is born on July 31st ( _Tom Marvolo Riddle had been born on a bitterly cold December 31st_ ). It is Harriet Potter who is a half-blood ( _Voldemort can still see the Riddles’ dead bodies cooling on the parlor floor_ ). And it is because Harriet Potter is a girl that Voldemort pauses and pursues her instead. Something about the symmetry and then sharp contrast feels like fate. He can feel the power of it. While his Death Eater’s gather intelligence on the locations of both families, Voldemort draws up his Arithmancy tables and confirms what he already knows in his bones. It is Harriet Potter who is a child of destiny. When their paths collide there is nothing but sevens between them.

In the end, the choice to kill Harriet Potter instead of Neville Longbottom on Samhain of 1981 isn’t even a choice at all.

Voldemort approaches Godric’s Hollow thrumming with ritual magic ready to make his final Horcrux. His soul will finally be split into seven pieces. The number seven refrained in every equation he had made with Harriet Potter. When he blasts through the door “Lily, take Harriet and go!” he easily cuts down James Potter, wandless and barreling towards him like a possessed muggle. He finds Lily Potter tightly holding her baby, portkey in hand. A silent _reducto_ shatters the crystal vase before it can activate. “Not Harriet,” the woman pleads. Voldemort tries, truly he does, to make the silly girl step aside. She refuses thrice. Severus would have to go unrewarded, and Voldemort strikes her down easily. She falls with the baby still in her arms.

Harriet Potter lets out a tearful cry, struggling out of her mother’s heavy dead weight and sitting up. She wails and pulls at her mother’s hair. As the Dark Lord approaches like a wraith, the girl’s cries stop in apparent fear. She stares up at him with large wet eyes, bottom lip trembling.

His downfall. It was amusing to think. Nearly a toddler instead of a baby, with shocking dark hair sticking up in every direction and bright emerald green eyes. It was better this way. Better to kill her now than let her linger and wonder when the inevitable would come. Voldemort drew his knife and slashed it across his palm. Almost tenderly, he drew the Sol rune on Harriet Potter’s forehead. She began to cry again at his touch.

Raising his wand, Voldemort cast the Killing Curse, glad to be done with the annoyingly loud child.

It was like the room went eerily silent, like entering a vacuum when all the sound had gone out. He could vaguely comprehend a ringing, extreme pressure on all sides, being ripped apart….

Pain. Pain like nothing he had known before ( _Voldemort was an expert on Pain. Inflicting it and enduring it after countless rituals to increase his power_ ). When it was over he was left not with the shaking limbs of one who has suffered. Instead, he felt nothing at all. His body was below him, disintegrating to dust. The child, screaming, her entire face red with each gasping breath. Where the Sol rune had been painted, an angry blistered slash had taken its place. The rune apparently imprinted upon her permanently.

He was a wraith. Not even a ghost. He had to flee, it was the only thing he could think to do. He must flee and get to safety. His followers would find him and return him to his former glory. Then he would have his revenge and deal with the Potter girl. His downfall would be short indeed….

But it would be thirteen years before Voldemort would rise once more.

**June 2, 1998**

It had been a month and Harriet Potter was going crazy.

When she had surrendered herself to the Dark Lord and had sworn an unbreakable vow to not escape from him she hadn’t expected to be left in isolation. In retrospect, she supposed it was quite obvious. Voldemort had left his Horcruxes in high-security locations, covered with wards and curses. Why would Harri be any different?

Their meeting in the forest hadn’t been observed by any of his followers. Just the two of them alone, negotiating what it would take to get her friends out of a siege alive. Harri promising bits of herself away and Voldemort taking ( _Like that night in Godric’s Hollow pushing her down, teeth at her neck, “It should be here, where it started. The two of us, Harriet, always”_ ).

Then Narcissa Malfoy was summoned to cast their vow. He vowed to give amnesty to all those with magic who agreed to a cease-fire, and she vowed to either stay where he commanded or seek to return to him if she were taken. Narcissa had been promptly obliviated, (“The Malfoys are beginning to lose their usefulness to me,” he sneered, not caring if he damaged the witch’s mind) and Harriet was taken to a cottage in the middle of nowhere.

“Stay within the wards,” was all the hissed parting she received before Voldemort disappeared. And Harriet had been alone.

The cottage was comfortable. It was made up of three rooms, cheerful and cozy. A bedroom and washroom were at the back. Nothing luxurious, but far more comfortable than Dudley’s second bedroom at the Dursleys. The largest room was at the front and was composed of a small sitting space and bookcase to the left and to the right a clean and functional kitchen with a table conspicuously set for two. When Harri ate dinner there she would stare at the empty place setting and wonder if Voldemort intended to use it at some point. More than once she had manically begun to laugh before dissolving into tears at the thought.

The first night had been the worst. She vacillated between trying to find some way to communicate and trying to figure out where the ward boundary was. That had left her stumbling around in the dark for three miles, not able to feel where the edge was. It had been a cool May night, and an exhausted Harriet had stumbled back into the cottage wet and shivering. She had washed, before perching herself on an armchair to wait. It was well after two in the morning, but surely Voldemort would return. Why shouldn’t he? He’d want to hash things out with her. Have a row. Gloat? ( _Use her again. A war spoil finally under his power. Bargained away little by little till she had agreed to everything he wanted_ )

He never came.

Harriet dozed to sleep and awoke sore and creaking the next morning to an empty cottage. She found the Daily Prophet on the kitchen table.

_Harriet Potter Declared Dead, The Dark Lord Triumphant_ the headline proclaimed. The paper turned to ashes in her hands and her anger burned all day. With renewed vigor, Harriet prowled the grounds at a slow jog. It took till noon, but she finally bumped up against the wards that contained her. Her stomach had clenched in hunger. It must have been over ten miles, Harri thought with regret at not bringing anything to eat. She returned to the cottage, ravenous with hunger, and made hasty sandwiches with bread from the pantry and cold cuts from the icebox. It was a standard magical kitchen, Harriet observed with frustration. An Icebox, an earthen oven, not even the type that could double as a floo, and a stovetop that wouldn’t lite without a wand. Why didn’t wizards realize that modern ovens and stoves were superior? Maybe an earthen oven would work well enough with a wand, but Harri didn’t have one. Her holly wand had snapped and was in Hermione’s mokeskin pouch. Draco’s wand had been returned to Narcissa Malfoy.

Harri made due like she always had ( _scraps from the table, whispers from the Order, a Dark Lord with eyes that burned possessively when they looked at her_ ).

Her year hunting Horcruxes had improved her survival skills and Harri had learned to make a fire by hand when magic was too risky. The plumbing was good at least, and she wouldn’t have to pump water. She got the kettle to a boil and made a hot cup of tea. Well and truly exhausted from her day, Harriet made another sandwich before going to the washroom to clean up. She finally shucked off her stiff and dirty clothes from the last forty eight hours and pulled on a soft grey cotton nightgown from the wardrobe in the bedroom. If Voldemort wanted to show up he could just wake her, she grumbled to herself as she climbed into bed. Harriet was asleep quickly, and once again Voldemort did not appear.

He didn’t visit at all that first week while she learned how to cook in an archaic kitchen. The pantry had a pad of paper that proclaimed in cheerful yellow, ‘Supply Request’ on which Harri could write a list when she was running low on something. She had been pleased to receive her favorite blend of herbal tea.

He didn’t appear when Harriet decided to make a garden the next week, requesting bulbs and seeds. She could only guess at the climate (Scotland, not too far from Hogwarts), but it was May and hopefully she wasn’t too late in the season to begin.

He didn’t appear all that month in fact, and Harriet was starting to go mad without someone to talk to. The wind had well and truly been let out of her sails. It wasn’t that she wanted to see Voldemort, ( _h_ _is hard grip on her wrist as she leveled her wand, prepared to kill_ ) but a month fully alone was worse than her childhood fantasies of waking up to the Dursleys gone and the house to herself could have predicted.

That, and she needed to know what was actually happening in the world. The Daily Prophet had appeared without fail every morning. After the first morning’s disaster of burning it to ashes, Harriet had been much more careful to control her temper. It had been a close call several times. Harri was infuriated by the pure propaganda that the paper spewed. Apparently, the Dark Lord was quite benevolent. Working to let Muggleborns re-enter society. Setting up honest to goodness foster homes for magically gifted children and taking them away from their muggle families. It was appalling theoretically, but to Harriet who had grown up unwanted under the stairs, the idea of having someone, anyone, come to take her away… She was the exception, not the rule. There were families like the Grangers who were very loving. Who had ended up obliviated anyways, because Hermione had been too scared that they would get involved or hurt.

There wasn’t news about the Order. Nothing on the Weasleys or Hermione. Only a brief mention of Neville Longbottom and a blurry picture of the Wizengamot voting with Neville in the background.

She couldn’t even feel Voldemort. There was no whisper in the back of her mind of his anger or cool amusement. She had tried reaching out, but felt like she ran into a road block each time. Either he was occluding exceptionally well or something else had changed. The wards? Could they possibly dampen their connection? Whatever it was, she didn’t like it. Part of her felt muted too, like having Voldemort so far away had cut off a part of herself as well. There hadn’t been an issue regarding distance before.

Harriet blamed her lack of Voldemort awareness for how he managed to surprise her by appearing quite suddenly and silently in front of her garden while she was weeding her tomatoes. The seeds grew much faster than she was used to, ready for replanting in three weeks instead of the usual six. They also seemed quite sturdy and had managed one exceptionally cold night without the slightest wilt. So concentrated was she on her plants, that she didn’t look up to see Voldemort. In fact, she only became aware of his existence when he cleared his throat.

She yelped and sprang to her feet, ripping up rather more of her seedling than she had intended.

“You!” she exclaimed, gripping in her back pocket for a wand that wasn’t there.

“Me,” he agreed, lips quirked in a small smirk. Voldemort looked far better than a man conquering the country should. Harriet had expected at least some light sleep deprivation, but he look well-rested and even a bit less sallow than usual. His snake-faced visage had been melted away at the end of her sixth year ( _“It’s him or all of them, Harriet. Doesn’t he deserve to die? After everything he’s done to you?”)_ , but he had never exactly looked healthy. His hair was longer now, she noted. More modern, less slicked back as if it were the 50’s.

His eyes were still red. That hadn’t changed, and they were chilling. They didn’t belong in broad daylight, but in a dark night or haunted tomb ( _on the floor of her childhood nursery, holding her down while Hermione screamed from Nagini’s coils_ ).

“What the bloody hell?” she shouted, throwing her dirt covered seedling at him. It hit his chest handily. “You leave me here to rot for a month? You can’t just stick me here. I want out! I’ll go wherever the bloody hell you want, but not isolation you bastard! I’ve had-”

He waved his hand and silenced her. The arse. “Harriet,” he sneered, “As charming as ever. I think not, on the disrespect. It shows at the very least that you are not ready for civilized company. If you could desist on your inane shouting, we will go in.” Her door opened, as he gestured.

Harriet crossed her arms and glared. “Petulant girl, in the cottage. Now. Or do I need to start threatening your friends?”

Harriet swallowed her pride and marched into the cottage. Right bloody git he was. Showing up out of the blue, acting like she was the uncivil one. She found an already boiling kettle when she entered the cottage, and realized Voldemort meant to take tea with her. Ridiculous, all of it.

She pulled scones out of the pantry. It wasn’t like she had had lunch that day, might as well eat something with tea. Show him uncivilized.

He poured the water directly into the pot without magic to let it steep. Harriet’s lips quirked. It was the little things that gave the two of them away as not magically raised. Even after all these years in the wizarding world, Voldemort poured his own water.

“Now then,” Voldemort began, taking a seat while the tea steeped. “If you can manage a civil conversation I will return your voice to you, but if you begin to shout I’m sure I can make this interaction quite… unpleasant.”

Harriet felt a chill go up her spine ( _‘Crucio’ his high voice had cried, and unbearable pain had ripped through her. Still bound tightly against the gravestone, bleeding and unable to run. Cedric, dead. Cedric, dead. Cedric, dead._ ), and nodded curtly. His hand flicked again, and he stared, clearly waiting for her to start shouting again.

She sank into the chair, arms still crossed, no doubt looking like the petulant child he accused her of being.

“You’ll be pleased to know that most of your friends have been detained and are waiting for re-entry into society. Pending signing a cease of aggression agreement, of course.”

Her throat felt like it was constricting, and Harriet had to blink away tears. She would not cry in front of Lord Voldemort. Not again. “Good,” she agreed. “I hope that they agree. Do you know, that is- I don’t truly want you to look- but have you heard what happened to my Godson? Teddy Lupin?”

“I can tell you,” he answered, eyes narrowed. It hadn’t been the question he had expected. No doubt he thought Ron and Hermione would be her first concerns. Teddy, not even a month old when Harri had walked into the Forbidden Forest, wasn’t a known factor to Lord Voldemort. “His grandmother had custody of him until quite recently, but she was detained for sedition against the state. The boy is in the custody of his closest relation, Narcissa Malfoy. Though, I don’t imagine she will keep the child.”

“Keep him? What- do you think Andromeda will get him back? Has she signed the non-aggression agreement?”

“Quite the opposite. She has permanently lost custody of the child. No, if what Lucius tells me is true, Narcissa plans to give the child over to Fenrir Greyback. Teddy Lupin is the child of a wolf after all.”

“NO. She can’t!” Harriet stood suddenly, rattling the cups with frenzied magic. “You have to help. Anything. Please. You have to stop her. That baby is my responsibility!”

“What is one half breed to me?” he sneered. But Harriet saw the smug look on his face. It was a negotiation, as always.

“Voldemort I was left to my muggle relatives. You were in that bloody orphanage. You and I both know what it is like to grow up unloved. He’s a magical child. He must be. Part Black at that. If all this propaganda is true you want to preserve magical blood.”

“And?”

“And he’s mine!” Harriet exclaimed, shattering her teacup in a frenzy of frustrated magic. “He’s mine to protect. I am demanding that you save the child.”

“You dare,” he hissed, standing slowly. The room darkened as his power shimmered around them. Her own magic felt suddenly dampened and contained. “Do not demand of Lord Voldemort, girl. Your value to me is limited to keeping you breathing. Do you know what I could do to you? Foolish child. The Draught of Living Death would work just as well. And see how Lord Voldemort provides for you instead. A nice home, air, and exercise. You could be locked away for not a soul to find, blissfully unaware for an eternity. Instead, I have been generous. You dare?”

“I do dare,” Harriet declared, ire raised. “What was it you said, “T _he Ghost of Tom Riddle lurks behind my eyes?_ ” You know that you wouldn’t want to be locked away any more than I do. This,” she gestured around, “it’s an attempt at a prison disguised as a home. I see through it, Voldemort. I dare because what will I lose? What do I have that is worth the loss of my godson? Nothing.”

He roiled in anger, but he didn’t curse her. He didn’t even shout. Instead, with hard clenched teeth he poured tea, adding an obnoxious amount of sugar. He returned to his seat fluidly.

“Have I described to you what it was like to be a wraith? To not taste? Smell? To not feel any physical sensation at all. I even began to miss pain, so dull and senseless was my existence.” Voldemort took a sip of his tea. “I could do that to you easily Harriet Potter. When you say you have nothing to lose, think long and hard on all I could take from you.”

“You’ll take and take for as long as I am in your power,” Harriet agreed. “I have no doubt that eventually, I’ll end up exactly as you want me. Be it drugged with sleeping death or punished into a wraith. Will you have me ask for it first too? With a please and a thank you? Yes, I think you will. You’ve had me bargaining myself away since you realized what I was. But while I’m still here, you can’t expect me to stop fighting for an innocent. That isn’t who I am.”

“No,” and the pressure of his magic lifted from her. “What will you give me this time, Harriet? What is worth your godson?”

“What do I have that you could want, Voldemort? You already have taken what I can think to give.” ( _Her parents. Blood of the enemy unwillingly taken. The Sanguinis Participes Ritual. Pettigrew. That night in Godric’s Hollow_ )

“Your words then,” he answered thoughtfully. “You will tell me, with full honesty, an answer to any question I ask you from now on. For that, I will see to it that Teddy Lupin is spared.”

“Not spared,” Harri argued, “Grows up with love. Not another abandoned child left on a doorstep.”

His lips curled into a sneer. “Left on a doorstep?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, not looking up from her own freshly poured tea in her mended cup.

“Our agreement will start now. You will expound upon being left on a doorstep.”

“It was Dumbledore,” Harriet explained softly, not looking up from the milky brown liquid. “He left me on the doorstep of my Aunt and Uncle. Aunt Petunia liked to rant about it sometimes. Opening the door and finding me with nothing but a letter. She said my parents’ friends must have been drunk to think that was an appropriate way to leave a baby.”

“Dumbledore left a magically gifted child on a doorstep in Surry with only a note?” His voice had taken on that high and cruel quality it obtained when he was truly angry.

“I was only left on a doorstep because you killed my parents,” Harri snapped.

“And these muggles treated you well?” Voldemort asked breezily.

“You know they didn’t. You’ve seen those memories already, haven’t you? They didn’t beat me, that’s about the best I can say.”

“Dumbledore never changed did he,” Voldemort mused bitterly. “Things will be different now. No longer will magical children grow up under the oppression of muggles. They’ll live in magical homes that understand magically gifted children.”

“There are good muggles. Ones who love their children. That don’t deserve their child being taken away and losing all memory of them. What you’re doing is cruel.”

“Cruel to some, but none of the children will lack. Better than a cupboard under the stairs I should think.”

Harriet flinched back. It was time to move on from this. Teddy would be safe, that was all that mattered.

“Do they know that I’m… alive? My friends, I mean.”

“Officially you are quite dead, Harriet.”

“Why?” she chocked out, “Why kill me off?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Why the isolation? Why ensuring no one knew of our agreement? No one knows what you are. I’ve made it so that not a soul will think to look for you.”

Harriet broke into a cold sweat. “You want to keep me here forever?” An eternity of isolation in the Scottish highlands? Not another soul but Voldemort occasionally popping in. What if he didn’t come? What if eventually, years from now, he forgot she even existed? It was the cupboard all over again; where the days had dragged on and Harriet would begin to wonder if she would die of hunger before the Dursleys remembered to open the door.

Only now, Harriet wouldn’t die. Even if Voldemort forgot her for centuries she wouldn’t die.

“Hardly that long. Eventually, I’ll think of some way you can return. Maybe not _you_ , but once you’ve proven that you can be trusted to not act out, an agreement could be made.” His eyes glinted with the unspoken leverage he held over her.

“I’ll go mad,” she hissed, “Surely you realize that. Muggles have all sorts of studies on isolation. I’ll be more barmey than Bellatrix ever was if you leave me here alone.”

“No need for dramatics, Harriet.”

“It’s not dramatics! What do you expect me to do here? I’ve no wand. I can barely work that bloody oven. You think I’ll just garden for the next century? Is that it?” Her voice had raised to an impressive pitch in her anxiety.

Voldemort reached into his robe pocket and pulled from it… her wand. Which was impossible.  
“It’s broken,” she whispered, eyes not blinking from the sight of her familiar and whole holly wand.

“Yes, and I fixed it. As the rightful master of the Elder Wand I can do many things once thought impossible. Even this.”

“You’re going to give it to me?” Harriet asked, wide eyes meeting his.

“You’re under an unbreakable vow to stay where I’ve put you. My wards prevent any communication. And unless you are far more advanced in Runes than I, I highly doubt you even know how to find my ward stones, let alone how to alter them. My ability to keep you here is certain. Now, say please.” He dangled her wand between his long fingers tauntingly.

He was trying to demean her, and a more stubborn Harriet might have spat in his face. This Harriet had spent a month alone. Had had to chop firewood for her oven. Hadn’t been able to heal any of her aches. Had done every little thing by hand. With as much sincerity as she could manage, Harri met Lord Voldemort’s eyes and answered calmly, “Please.”

**June 3, 1998**

Harri opened her front door. A strange whimpering noise had woken her, and she wondered if a rodent had gotten into her garden. She had cast a spell Neville had taught her to deter pests, but he had warned it could go wrong and cause them to gorge themselves to death instead.

There wasn’t a dying field mouse on her doorstep.

Instead, Harri opened her door to find a baby wrapped in swaddling blankets with a note tucked inside.

_As promised_


	2. Harriet's Blood

**June 24, 1995**

Two figures appear in the darkness of a graveyard. 

“Where are we?” a feminine voice questions. 

“Did anyone tell _you_ the cup was a Portkey?” asks a masculine baritone. 

The night of Voldemort’s return lives in disjointed memory. Some of it is horribly clear to her mind’s eye. Some of it is blurred, coming in and out of focus like a badly cut film. The rest? Lost completely. 

The first part, the part with Cedric, is the clearest of all. If Harri could change anything about that night it would be what happens next. With the approach of an unknown figure, Harri should have pressed the Portkey back into Cedric Diggory’s hands. She should have pushed him out of the way. She should have done so many different things (but could she have? On the ground as she was from the pain of her scar?).

“ _Kill the spare_ ,”

A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: “ _Avada Kedavra!_ ”

A blast of green light blazed through Harri’s eyelids, and she heard something heavy fall to the ground beside her; the pain in her scar reached such a pitch that she retched, and then it diminished; terrified of what she was about to see, she opened her stinging eyes.

Cedric, lying spread-eagled on the ground beside her. 

Cedric, open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, his half-opened mouth.

Cedric, dead.

He would stay imprinted in Harri’s nightmares for years to come. Sometimes they are all she remembers of that night. His gray eyes supersede all other memory until-

Harri: bound and gagged against a gravestone. Pettigrew before her, “B-blood of the enemy… forcibly taken… you will… resurrect your foe.”

She could do nothing to prevent it, she was tied too tightly… the shining silver dagger shook in Wormtail’s remaining hand. The point penetrated the crook of her right arm and blood flowed down the sleeve of her torn robes. 

Her blood was added to the cauldron with the gollum. 

Harri prayed to every force she could think of; God, Merlin, Zeus, Magic itself. _Let it have drowned, let it have gone wrong…_

It didn’t go wrong. Through the mist, Harri made out the figure of a dark man rising from the cauldron. Tall and skeletally thin. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake’s with slits for nostrils…

Lord Voldemort.

The horror of the risen Dark Lord blurs her memories of what happens next, leaving her with only flashes. Wormtail bleeding, the Dark Mark, the Death Eater’s appearing, Voldemort chastising his servants. Harri knows it happened, but it fades into the background like white noise.

In the foreground, there is only Voldemort himself. His focus on Harriet when- “I can touch her now,”

The spider-like finger press against her cheek. Voldemort's cold laugh at her pain. Cold sweat pouring down her back as she struggled against the headstone. Voldemort’s words to his servants a blur of half-heard monologue. She had to get away. She had to escape.

“But the blood of a foe… Wormtail would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormtail? Any wizard who had hated me… as so many of them still do. But I knew the one I must use if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Harriet Potter’s blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago… for the lingering protection her mother once gave her would then reside in my veins too…”

She had felt sick. She would be ill all over again. Her blood inside Voldemort? ( _Later would come knowledge. Later the words ‘and the Dark Lord will bind her ever closer’ would make her break out in a cold sweat anew)_.

“And here she is… the girl you all believed to have been my downfall…”

Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Harri. He raised his wand.

“ _Crucio!”_

Pain beyond anything Harri had ever experienced; her very bones were on fire; her head was surely splitting along her scar; her eyes were rolling madly in her head; she wanted it to end… to blackout… to die…

And then it was gone. She was hanging limply in the ropes binding her to the headstone of Voldemort’s father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a film of mist. The Death Eater’s ringing laughter echoed through the graveyard. 

“Now untie her, Wormtail, and give her back her wand…”

For reasons Harri would never understand her first words to Voldemort in that graveyard didn’t come out in English. Maybe it was due to the exhaustion of attempting to duel after the cruciatus curse. Maybe the fright from Cedric’s empty gray eyes and Voldemort’s snakelike appearance. She would never be able to answer for the words “ _I WON’T_!” coming out as a hiss while fighting off Voldemort’s Imperius Curse. 

But they did, and it changed everything. 

Voldemort stilled, wand still casually pointed towards her. His red eyes narrowed in confusion. The Death Eaters, relegated to bit characters, fade away completely from Harri’s memory. 

“ _You speak?_ ” he had asked, moving forward swiftly. Her wand flung from her hand with a cutting movement of his own. His grip upon her wrist more swiftly than she can blink. His eyes taking up full residence of her vision. His wand pressed almost gently upon her scar-

“ _Let go_ ,” come her own panicked words, but Voldemort hears none of it. 

“ _My downfall_ ,” he hisses instead, eyes transfixed on her scar. “ _I am the Laius of my own destruction."_

She wouldn’t know what Voldemort meant for two years. She is left in blank confusion (horror) as Voldemort lets go of her wrist as suddenly as he took it. 

“Take your dead, Harriet Potter, and go,” he spits at her like a viper. 

Harri scampers to Cedric’s body unimpeded. She takes his cooling hand in her own and summons the Triwizard Cup. Voldemort’s red eyes are all she sees as she is jerked by the navel. She is sped away in a whirl of wind and color, Cedric along with her, but to Harri, everything is tinged with red.

**June 3, 1998**

If Voldemort thought leaving Harri with a newborn baby was going to ease her complaint of loneliness he was very mistaken. 

Harri had never had much experience with young children. A six-week-old baby was a curveball she was ill-equipped to deal with. Holding the upset infant, Harri rushed to her pantry to add formula, bottles, and nappies to the list. Things didn’t usually appear for an hour, which left Harri awkwardly bouncing the baby around the cottage while he cried hungrily. 

Muggle bottles and the formula she was vaguely aware of seeing while shopping with Aunt Petunia did not appear. There wasn’t any powder. Instead, there was a potion. Was she supposed to feed a baby a potion? That didn’t seem safe. 

Reading the label, Harri was shocked to see _Lactationis_. She had read about this in the context of wet nurses in History of Magic, but she had never brewed it or heard about it in a more modern setting. Was this standard practice? What the hell. Seventeen-year-old Harri Potter was in no way prepared to nurse a baby! Formula! That was what she needed. Not… this!

Teddy was screaming loudly, and Harri felt she hadn’t been left much of a choice. She downed the potion and within minutes felt a painful fullness in her breasts.

The resulting feeding was messy and wet. Milk went everywhere and the baby latched eagerly but would delatch every few gulps panting while milk continued to spray. Eventually, the flow lessened and Harri was able to calm Teddy. He delatched after ten minutes, and Harri’s other aching breast was offered. He half-heartedly latched but didn’t stay awake long enough to ease the fullness. Harri was left with a quiet house and a painfully engorged breast. 

It was perhaps the best she could hope for considering the situation. 

Carrying the baby in one arm, Harri returned to the pantry. What did babies need? The nappies were cloth diapers that had no instructions on how to get them on. His clothing was covered in milk. He needed a change that she simply didn’t possess. What would Hermione do in this situation? She had as little experience as Harri did in child-rearing, but somehow Hermione would still know what to do. She would find a book or… a book!

‘ _A book on infant care_ ’

‘ _Clothing for a six-week-old boy’_

Did she need a cot? Did wizards buy those? She had her wand, didn’t she? Harri supposed she could just transfigure whatever she needed furniture wise. 

‘ _A cot mattress’_

_‘Sheets for a cot mattress’_

_‘Bumpers’_

_‘Baby blankets’_

She was stretching her knowledge of what babies need. This was a disaster in the making. What had Voldemort been thinking? The answer came as soon as the question was asked. Leverage. Live in leverage to keep Harri on her very best behavior. She had said it herself, hadn’t she? What wouldn’t she give for her godson? Not that he needed Teddy for that. Voldemort knew as well as Harri that any innocent would do (" _Is one man worth the loss of ten? Shall I introduce them to you? This young woman is Margaret. Pretty thing, isn’t she? She has two children at home")_. 

What followed was a long and stressful day. The baby refused to be put down. He would scream every time Harri attempted to lay him in the crib for his nap. He didn’t nurse every two to three hours like the book claimed, but every hour and a half. The nappies were held together after some ill-advised origami with a sticking charm. The package they arrived in touted them as 24-hour self-cleaning nappies, but Teddy leaked after six hours and acquired an angry red bum. 

Harri requested ‘ _non-magical nappies for sensitive skin_ ’ and ‘ _Bum cream’._

The book was helpful in some ways. When her nipples began to ache, there was a spell to heal cracking. There was a spell to help with letdown so that Teddy wouldn’t choke every time he started to eat. There was an ingredient list for a salve to prevent mastitis (something that was apparently very common when using _Lactationis)_. The book offered the potion as an easy solution to low milk supply but also spoke of formula that emulated breastmilk. Why hadn’t whoever was on the other end of her pantry given her some? 

It was after ten when Harri finally laid down to get some sleep. The baby, who by all rights should have been in his cot, would only sleep in the nook of Harri’s arm. The two snuggled together on the bed, blankets pulled away from Teddy. She cast the charm that would pinch her awake if Teddy’s breathing dipped, and fell into a light sleep. Thankfully, Teddy only woke twice in the night and quickly fell asleep after eating. So long as Harri kept him close he seemed content. 

Somehow, despite the exhaustion and frantic day, Harri felt content too.

**June 6, 1998**

Voldemort didn’t wait a month to reappear at Harri’s doorstep. He didn’t even wait a whole week. There was a knock on her door around nine at night. Harri was feeding the baby before attempting to put him down. It had worked the night before, and Harri had had a few glorious moments without being touched before exhaustion overtook her. 

He didn’t pause for her response before entering the cottage, and he found her seated on the sofa with Teddy at her breast. If he looked surprised he didn’t show it, but he gave her a triumphant look. 

“Has it worked?” he asked musingly, closing the door behind him.

“Has what worked?” Harri asked softly, mindful of disturbing Teddy.

“I’ve read that the oxytocin rush of nursing a child promotes bonding. Do you find that you love it?”

What? “You’ve read… what?”

“Hormones, Harriet. Surely you’ve read about them at some point. You took science classes in primary school.” Voldemort folded himself into a plush armchair across from the sofa. 

“Let me- let me be sure I understand you,” Harri said stiffly. “You, for whatever reason, decided that instead of giving me baby formula you were going to force me to breastfeed Teddy because you wanted me to… to love him?”

“There isn’t a point in giving it to you if you’re not going to love it,” Voldemort explained as if she were a very slow child.

Harri closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Teddy was asleep, she was going to put him down. She wasn't going to row with Voldemort with a baby in her arms. She stood and removed herself to the back room. Carefully she laid Teddy into his crib. He gave a muffled snuffle as she pulled her arms away, but he did not wake.

Silently, Harri crept from the bedroom and closed the door behind her with a soft click. She cast _Muffliato_ and turned to face Voldemort.

“What the FUCK?” she screeched. “What the actual Fuck Voldemort. You want me to love your hostage and you think that’s how it works? What the bloody hell is-”

He silenced her. The bastard. Well, Harri had a wand now. While she was no expert at silent casting, she could manage a _Finite_. 

“Tone, Harriet,” Voldemort snipped. Deep breath, Harri, deep breath.

“Voldemort,” Harri hissed through grit teeth, “I know that love isn’t something you’re great on. I get that you’ve only had the full range of emotions for a year now. New and shocking. But does it occur to you that loving a child is not dependent upon lactation?”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Voldemort agreed, “but it was the fastest way to ensure bonding. You wouldn’t love it-”

“Him,” Harri corrected.

“ _Him_ ,” continued Voldemort, “already if I’d let you have it your way.”

Harri slid back onto the sofa, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I loved Teddy already, Voldemort.”

He snorted. “You can’t possibly know that. You had never met it.”

“Him. I had never met _him_. You will find that I most certainly did love him. I loved him before he was born. As soon as I knew about his existence I loved that child.”

“How very Gryffindor,” he sneered. “Going around loving everything. That is beside the point. I instructed Lolly-”

“Who is Lolly?”

“My houself. Obviously.” Obviously? How should she know he has a houself.

“You have your own houself? You don’t have a house! Unless- you’re not counting the one in Little Hangleton are you?”

Voldemort narrowed his eyes. “I have several houses. Only a fool doesn’t have a safe house. You are living in one if you’d notice.” He gestured around fluidly. “I give the illusion that I live with the Malfoys.” 

“Why? 

“You’re being simple, Harriet. I don’t live with the Malfoys because it isn’t secure. No one looks for my safehouses because they assume I live with the Malfoys. It is an effective decoy." Paranoid Dark Lord. "As I was saying. I instructed Lolly to give you _Lactationis_ to expedite the bonding process. You demanded the child in any case, why are you complaining? I can always take it away if you like.” 

Harri glared. “Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of live-in-leverage? I do understand what this is, Voldemort. You want Teddy to be a hostage. You think I’ll stay on my best behavior because of the baby.”

“Won’t you? You’re the one who said you would give _anything_ for his safety?” The way he said anything gave her the sensation of a hook in her naval. Ah. So that supposition had been right after all. 

“I did say that," Harri agreed. "I would do nearly anything to keep Teddy safe. I’m pointing something out though, Voldemort. You’ve said yourself, this is _your_ house. You brought the child into the wards. You provided the means to feed the child. I argue that you have invoked _Xenia_. You cannot harm him while he is within your wards. No matter how much I mess up.”

Voldemort hissed. “Bold of you, Harriet.”

“Not bold at all. I’m no _great Rune Master_ such as yourself, but I’ve certainly studied enough about Lordships and Home Warding to know that _Xenia_ was one of the compacts you made with magic in order to construct them. It was my sixth-year project,” Harri explained smugly.

Voldemort’s answering smile made her stomach squirm. “All I have to do is take the child out from the ward perimeter, Harriet. Remove him and safely escort him to his next destination-”

“His destination would need to be set by his legal guardian. If his grandmother isn’t his guardian, then I am. I am enacting the right of _in loco parentis_. I do not give any such permission.”

“You are dead,” Voldemort spat.

“I am very much alive and will be for a very long time thanks to you Voldemort!” Harri crowed. 

“Legally you are dead, Harriet Potter. You have no rights at all. If I want to take the child, I will take the child. If you want the brat to stay with you; safe, sound, and fed, you will act as befitting a guest in my home.” 

“I am a prisoner here, Voldemort. I am your negotiated hostage. Don’t pretend this is something else.”

His red eyes narrowed, he leaned forward. “Hostage? Is that how you would prefer it, Harriet? Be careful what you give up in the eyes of my wards. I have viewed you as my guest, I think you’ll find that a _hostage_ or better yet, a _spoil of war_ , has far fewer protections.”

He wasn’t touching her, but Harri felt the words slide over her like a velvet caress ( _A hand running over her breast, sliding down her side, coming to rest against her hip. Electricity runs the length of his touch, everything is sharp and buzzing as his grip tightens)_. She can’t meet his eyes.

“Is that the threat?” Harri asked at last. “I’ve been wondering and wondering why you gave me Teddy. It wasn’t from the goodness of your heart and I very much doubt it was to ensure that I'm not lonely. I’ve gone over it in my head again and again. Why would you need me to stay docile for you? You want me to sleep with you. That’s what this is about.”

“Don’t be crude, Harriet.”

“It isn’t being crude,” Harri responded shrilly. She looked up at last, meeting his eyes. “You and I know what _it_ did to you. It was easier before when you were a monster. But now-” she took a shuddering breath. “Everything has been different.”

“It isn’t as if I have enjoyed your _emotions_ , Harriet. Do you think I rejoice in being brought so low by you?”

“Brought low,” Harri scoffed. 

“It’s like a disease.”

“Well don’t involve me in it!” Harri exclaimed. “It isn’t my business if you-” She broke off. 

“If I what?” his voice was soft. “If I want to fuck you?” Harri flinched. 

“I find it to be a natural reaction. I have only ever cared for myself and my own company. I freely admit it. What are you, Harriet, but a version of myself? We are one soul, one blood, one magic.”

“We are none of those things. Just because you’ve done your best to badly suture us together we are still fully separate beings Voldemort.” 

“Is that what you tell yourself? We are one, Harriet Potter. We are infinite.”

Harriet stood, arms wrapped around herself. “Just stop. I’m tired, Voldemort, and I don’t want to play games. Why are you here tonight? Is it to gloat? To make me sleep with you? Checking in on your hormone project?”

He reached out like a viper and pulled her forward. Harri braced herself on his shoulders so she didn’t fall into his lap as he intended. Their noses were nearly touching. Voldemort leaned forward, his mouth coming flush with her neck. It wasn’t a kiss and felt like a threat. Harri, the continual prey in every interaction with him, was frozen to the spot. 

“When I decide to fuck you again you will be willing for me. When I want your conversation you will give it. Whatever I want from you, you’ll comply. Does that sound fair, little Harri?” 

She opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came out. She wanted to claim that there wasn’t anything willing about her, but the feel of his lips murmuring against her skin shot fire through her. 

“Why did you stay away for a month if that’s what you want,” she gulped out at last.

“Because I could,” he murmured against her ear lobe. Harri’s wrists were becoming slack against him, she was leaning forward into his warmth. 

“That isn’t an answer.” Harri forced herself to push away from him. To take a step back. He let her, but there was a ferocity to his gaze and posture that was more striking cobra than stayed man. “I don’t want to be a plaything locked away in a cottage. I don’t want you to threaten Teddy every time I act differently than you like. Can’t you understand I’m tired, Voldemort? Not just because of the baby either. I’ve been running and running for so long. I’ve been afraid, and I’m still afraid. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

“All you have to do is be compliant,” said his hypnotically calm voice. “I can take care of everything. You’re safe with me now. No one will bother you anymore.”

“YOU are the problem. I’m not safe,” and tears started to leak from the corners of Harri’s eyes. “How can I be safe? Fuck you and you’ll play nice? Comply to your every whim and no one gets hurt? I’m not playing. I abstain.”

The sincere facade cracked instantly. “You’ll do as I please,” he snapped, standing. How was he so much taller than she? “I gave you time to calm down. Space. I could have returned that night. Don’t think I didn’t consider it.” He was grasping her arms now, grip hard and bruising. “I could have taken you and reveled in your tears. In my victory.”

“Then why didn’t you,” Harri snapped. Anger was easier when he was like this. It was the silky smooth persona that was so difficult for her. It lulled her into a false calm. This Voldemort she could handle. “Were you afraid? Were you too much of a coward to face me?” 

“I wanted to forget you,” he sneered. “I wanted to never see your damnable face again.”

“Then why did you come back? Why are you here, Voldemort? I’ve asked you three times now” 

“Your blood in my veins has left me burning from the inside out for four years. Would that I could just forget about you. It’s all I want”

His lips were pressed down onto her's hungrily. Teeth biting, hand pulling at her hair, an arm crushing her against him. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. It was too much. He was always too much.

A cry from the bedroom.

“Voldemort,” she broke the kiss and turned her head. His lips moved down to her neck. He bit down hard, making her yelp.

A loud wail.

“The baby needs me." If possible, his grip became more bruising. 

“Voldemort,” she tried more loudly, pushing herself out of his strop grasp. Angry red eyes glared at her.

“Do I look like I care?”

“I don’t want to sleep with you. Please, not tonight. Teddy needs me.” Voldemort closed his eyes and Harri had the impression he was counting to ten. “It happened already. It can’t keep happening. You’re giving me emotional whiplash. You stay away for a month, you come back a few days later. I'm the burn in your blood, but I'm a stupid girl you can't stand. Enough. I need to feed the baby and I need to go to bed.”

His arms fell back to his sides, hands flexing. His face was contorted in anger. Fury even. “You think you can reject me? You fool. When I can-”

“Yes. I know. You don’t have to keep repeating yourself. I understand.” It came out as exhausted as Harri felt. Somehow Harri is the one who is supposed to have emotional maturity in this situation. Maybe it isn’t surprising that Voldemort vacillates so wildly. He’s only had access to the full spectrum of emotions for a year, after all. It’s just that Harri has never been overly emotionally mature. Brash Gryffindors aren’t known for impulse control or inner regulation. 

Teddy began to truly cry from the bedroom. Not the first murmurs of waking, but a full-blown cry. He wasn’t going to go back to sleep easily. 

“Go,” Voldemort hissed at her. “Sooth your child.” He turned with a swish of his cloak, heading for the door.

“When will you be back?” Harri called after him. He froze, back stiff. His hands clenched into tight fists. For whatever reason, the question had been the wrong one.

“Lord Voldemort is not beholden to the whims of a girl,” he didn’t turn to face her. “I will return at my own convenience. Perhaps not at all.” 

Not at all, she thought with horror. Alone in the middle of nowhere. Not at all. “Good,” she snapped, mouth getting away from her. “Fine. Go then.” 

The kitchen table by the door cracked loudly. The baby was well and truly distressed now. She didn’t want to turn her back on Voldemort, but Teddy could no longer be ignored. Harri turned heel and rushed into the bedroom. The red-faced baby had broken his poorly wrapped swaddle and was flailing wildly. Harri scooped him up and pulled up her nightshirt. Teddy latched hungrily. The door slammed, and Harri could only assume Voldemort was gone.

He’d return at his own convenience, Harri thought darkly, or perhaps not at all. Perhaps she and Teddy would be stuck in an isolated cottage in Scotland forever without another soul for company. Or… he would come back. He’d expect Harri to sleep with him at his convenience. His hideaway fuck-toy. The girl he’d have an eternity to forget and remember a thousand times over. 

Her blood made him burn, what utter bullshit. His blood had done nothing of the kind to her ( _body weak on the Ministry floor. Bellatrix laughing as her blood pooled around her. Voldemort’s voice cutting through Bellatrix’s manic cackles. A green light_ ).

Teddy grasped her finger with a flailing hand. He looked up at her with his brown eyes that were the same warm brown of Andromeda Tonks. His eyes drifted closed slowly, before flashing back open as he fought sleep. His eyes were no longer brown, but a startling emerald green. Harri looked down owlishly. She hadn’t exactly forgotten, Remus had mentioned that Teddy was a metamorphmagus, she just hadn’t seen it yet. 

“Look at you,” Harri whispered, “just like your mum.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xenia: The Ancient Greek concept of hospitality. The host is expected to provide food, safe lodging, and an escort to the next destination. To break Xenia would be to compromise your honor. I think in ward development it would be interesting to have a similar compact with the home/area guarded. If Voldemort were to break Xenia it would compromise the integrity of his wards.


	3. Voldemort's Blood

**June 20, 1996**

There was a loud bang and a yell from behind the dais. Harri saw Kingsley, yelling in pain, hit the ground. Bellatrix Lestrange turned tail and ran as Dumbledore whipped around. He aimed a spell at her but she deflected it. She was halfway up the steps now-

“Harri- no!” cried Lupin, but Harri had already ripped her arm from Lupin’s slackened grip.

“SHE KILLED SIRIUS!” bellowed Harri. “SHE KILLED HIM- I’LL KILL HER!”

And she was off, scrambling up the stone benches. People were shouting behind her but she did not care. The hem of Bellatrix’s robes whipped out of sight ahead and they were back in the room where the brains were swimming… 

Bellatrix aimed a curse over her shoulder. The tank rose into the air and tipped. Harri was deluged in the foul-smelling potion within. The brains slipped over her and began spinning their long, colored tentacles, but she shouted, “ _Wingardium Leviosa!_ ” and they flew into the air away from her. Slipping and sliding she ran on toward the door. She leapt over Luna, who was groaning on the floor, past Ginny who said, “Harri- what-?” past Ron, who giggled feebly, and Hermione, who was still unconscious. She wrenched open the door into the circular black hall and saw Bellatrix disappearing through a door on the other side of the room- beyond her was the corridor leading back to the lifts. 

She ran, but Bellatrix had slammed the door behind her and the walls had begun to rotate again. Once more Harri was surrounded by streaks of blue light from the whirling candelabra. 

“Where’s the exit?” she shouted desperately, as the wall rumbled to a halt again. “Where’s the way out?” 

The room seemed to have been waiting for her to ask. The door right behind her flew open, and the corridor toward the lifts stretched ahead of her, torch-lit and empty. She ran…

She could hear the lift clattering ahead of her. She sprinted up the passageway, swung around the corner, and slammed her first onto the button to call a second lift. It jangled and banged lower and lower; the grilles slid open and Harri dashed inside, now hammering the button marked Atrium. The doors slid shut and she was rising…

She forced her way out of the lift before the grilles were fully open and looked around. Bellatrix was almost at the telephone lift at the other end of the hall, but she looked back as Harri sprinted toward her, and aimed another spell at Harri. She dodged behind the Fountain of Magical Brethren; the spell zoomed past her and hit the wrought gold gates at the other end of the Atrium so that they rang like bells. There were no more footsteps. Bellatrix had stopped running. Harri crouched behind the statues, listening. 

“Come out, come out, little Harriet!” Bellatrix called in her mock-baby voice, which echoed off the polished wooden floors. “What did you come after me for, then? I thought you were here to avenge my dear cousin!”

“I am!” shouted Harri, and a score of ghostly Harriets seemed to chorus _I am! I am! I am!_ All around the room.

“Aaaaah… did you _love_ him, little baby Potter?”

Hatred rose in Harri such as she had never known before. She flung herself out from behind the fountain and shrieked “ _Crucio_!”

Bellatrix screamed. The spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with pain as Neville had ( _eyes rolling back in her head let it end let me die)_ \- Bellatrix was already on her feet again, breathless, no longer laughing. Harri dodged behind the golden fountain again- Bellatrix's counterspell hit the head of the handsome wizard, which was blown off and landed twenty feet away, gouging long scratches into the wooden floor.

“Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, girl?” she yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. “You need to _mean_ them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain- to enjoy it- righteous anger won’t hurt me for long- I’ll show you how it is done, shall I? I’ll give you a lesson- I'm sure the Dark Lord will not begrudge me that!”

Harri had been edging around the fountain on the other side. Bellatrix screamed, “ _Crucio_!” and Harri was forced to duck down again as the centaur’s arm, holding its bow, spun off and landed with a crash on the floor a short distance from the golden wizard’s head. 

“Potter, you cannot win against me!” she cried. Harri could hear Bellatrix moving to the right, trying to get a clear shot of her. Harri backed around the statue away from the madwoman, crouching behind the centaur’s legs, her head level with the house-elf’s. “I was and am the Dark Lord’s most loyal servant, his most favored, I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little girl, can never hope to compete for his interst-”

“ _Stupefy_!” yelled Harri. She had edged right around to where the goblin stood beaming up at the now headless wizard and taken aim at Bellatrix’s back as she peered around the fountain for her. Bellatrix reacted so fast she barely had time to duck. 

“ _Protego!”_

The jet of red light, her own Stunning Spell, bounced back at her. Harri scrambled back behind the fountain, and one of the goblin’s ears went flying across the room. 

“ _Diffindo,_ ” Bellatrix cast just as quickly as her Shield Charm. Harri didn’t have time to dodge. The Severing Charm hit in the stomach. Blood instantly bloomed on Harri’s jumper. She screamed in pain and fell back. Her scar began to burn instantly. 

Bellatrix cackled in triumph. “Give me the prophecy- and I may heal you, little Potter! The Dark Lord doesn’t want you dead just yet.”

“Then you’ve killed me,” Harri gasped out, putting pressure on the wound. Desperately trying to stem the bleeding. “It’s gone!” The searing pain in her forehead became worse than the pain in her gut. “And he knows!” Harri coughed, a mad laugh escaping to match Bellatrix’s own. “Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it’s gone! He knows I’m-” she coughed again, blood spattering out this time, “-dying.” Everything was cold. Harri let her head fall back to the ground. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. She’d be with her mum and dad. She’d be with Sirius. No more war, no more Voldemort.

Her blood was pooling around her.

“What? What do you mean?” Bellatrix cried, and for the first time, there was fear in her voice. Harri didn’t answer. She was so very cold. 

“Potter! What do you mean?” Harri’s vision felt fuzzy. The gold form of the statue was starting to look bronze. How odd.

“Smashed,” Harri hoarsely whispered. 

“LIAR!” Bellatrix screamed. Her shrieks continued disjointedly and Harri couldn’t quite make them out. “GIVE IT- PROPHECY- MASTER- TRIED- PUNISH”

Who was she talking to? Not Voldemort, surely. Except, “failed me,” broke through. Voldemort’s voice; cold and high. 

A green light flashed, and Harri closed her eyes. This was it then. Except… there was a new pressure on her stomach, lifting her arm away. Warmth blooming in her middle. It made the ice of her limbs even more pronounced. 

She opened her eyes. She could barely focus, but there amongst the blurry cold was pitiless red. 

“Tonight will do, Potter,” Voldemort hissed as he lifted her into his arms. The movement gave her vertigo, and Harri couldn’t focus, couldn’t keep her eyes open. 

“You will stay awake,” and pain shot through her scar making Harri jerk. They were twisting away… and Harri was laid on something hard. She could only focus on her breathing. In and out. In and out. 

Everything was so dark. Even with her eyes open everything was unbearably dark. Pricks of light were over her though. Was she imagining it? No- they were stars. She was laying on a stone table in the open. 

“Vol-” she couldn’t get it out. Her lips wouldn’t work. 

He was saying something she couldn’t understand. His lips were moving but the words were lost on her. Harri tried to sit up, but the pain in her middle wouldn’t let her. He had stopped the bleeding somehow, but Harri felt unbearably weak. 

Voldemort loomed over her with a… knife?! Harri feebly pushed back, trying to get away, but he made no move to cut at her. Instead, he cut into his own palm and lifted it up. He was… was he chanting? Harri squinted up at the bleeding mark. Naudiz? Voldemort looked back down at Harri. He took her left hand and wrapped it around the handle of the knife. 

“Harriet Potter you will do as I say. You have lost blood, do you understand? No, I can see that you do not.” Harri already knew she had lost blood, of course she understood that. What she didn’t understand was why Voldemort had decided to put a knife in her hand.

“You will consent to this, Harriet. Do you want to die? One missed _Protego_ should not be the difference between life and death.” 

To die. To be with her mum and dad. Sirius. Would dying be so bad? Harri tilted her head back and looked up to the sky. Maybe Sirius was up there, floating in the stars. Maybe he was somewhere near his namesake. Wouldn’t it be something to go find him there?

“I command you to live,” pain broke through her cold reverie. Live? Why on Earth did Voldemort want her to live? Harri's eyes locked onto his intense red stare and she couldn’t look away. They were inhuman unholy things.

“You’ll say yes to me now, Harriet, won’t you?” came the silky soft hiss of his voice. Not so high as usual. The red was everywhere and Harri could only nod faintly. 

“Say yes, little Harri, say yes to life.”

“Yes,” slipped out in a gentle whisper. He struck quickly. One hand maneuvered her hand and the knife while his other forced her right palm open. It barely hurt, and Harri was so cold and dazed that she blinked at Voldemort’s carving with detachment. Her eyes felt so heavy, she couldn’t keep them open. This was important. She needed to stay awake- but she couldn’t. Her head fell back against the stone and Harri looked up at the stars again. They were blurry pricks. 

He was chanting. Something was pressing into her numb fingers…

Pain shot through her arm, hot and firey. All of her nerve endings screamed from it. Harri’s eyes shot wide and her mouth twisted open, trying to scream. The sound wouldn’t come. She couldn’t catch her breath enough to let out the shriek that was building inside. 

The fire was spreading, it rushed into her chest, and from there down through her other three limbs, up into her head, into her scar- Her whole body was consumed with fire, it was eating away at every inch of her. This was hell, Voldemort had condemned her to endless flames stop stop stop. It would be better to die than this. At last, the scream that had been building broke through, loud and high. Harri screamed an unearthly wail that did not belong to a fifteen-year-old girl. 

There was no sudden end, but eventually, the pain lessened. The fire dampened. Harri could stop screaming and started taking in the night air with sharp gasps. She rolled over onto her hands and knees and retched onto the stone table. Her whole body was shaking.

What had he done to her? Harri looked down at her palm. There was a rune. A very clearly carved Eihwax; yew. A guardian of the flame. 

“I was going to die,” Harri gasped out. She pushed up into a kneeling position and looked down at her bloody stomach. There was a shiny pink scar where Bellatrix’s cut had been. “Why didn’t I die?”

Voldemort, who looked shaky as well, gazed on her with smug satisfaction. “You are not for another to kill, Harriet Potter.”

“What did you do?” Harri asked breathlessly. 

“What I planned eventually in any case. Bellatrix… expedited matters. Conveniently, it is the week of Litha. Fire and Blood magics are especially strong.” 

Harri slid off the sick covered table. Her legs wouldn’t support her. She collapsed onto the soft grass. Took several deep breaths.

“Why aren’t I dead? What did you do to me?”

“Lord Voldemort returned a favor for services rendered. Nothing more, nothing less. You gave your blood to me a year ago, now I have given blood to you.”

“Blood? How- no. No. That isn’t how blood replenishing works.”

“True,” came self-satisfied agreement. “This is, I admit, more permanent than replenishing your blood. No, I have _shared_. I have rewarded you, Harriet, ten times what you provided me.”

Shared… Shared? Why did that sound familiar. Litha. Eihwax. Naudiz.

“ _Sanguinis Participates_ ,” Shared Blood. Literal shared blood. What one person lost would be replenished by the other. “You- why would you tie us together like this?” Harri asked looking up in horror. 

“It is not a permanent solution to our problems, I’ll admit,” Voldemort smiled. Sharp toothed. Eldritch.

“Dumbledore will still kill you, he won’t care if it hurts me too,” Harri exclaimed, shakily attempting to get to her feet. Her knees buckled.

Voldemort _laughed_ ; high, cold, and cruel. The hair on her arms stood up. “Oh no, Harriet. I’m far more concerned with your mortality at the moment than my own. Are you worried Dumbledore will make you bleed? Try to kill me by killing you? Fear not, Lord Voldemort will never run out of blood.”

“Dumbledore would never-”

“I have wondered what Dumbledore would or would _never_ do concerning you, Harriet. I will let you into the old man’s secret. He _loves_ you.” Voldemort spat the word out like it was something diseased. “He knew what I wanted from the Ministry. Instead of having you remove it for him, he set his guards instead. They were ready sacrifices to keep _you_ from knowing.”

“From knowing what?” Harri’s words hung between them for what felt like an age. Voldemort appraised her, and she wondered what he saw. 

“ _Stupefy”_

**June 21, 1996**

When Harri woke, for a glorious few moments Sirius Black was still alive. Everything was blank until Harri’s memory stretched out and it all came flowing back. Sirius was dead. What had happened to Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, and Luna? Sirius was dead. Voldemort had forced her into a blood sharing ritual. Voldemort had… saved her? SIRIUS WAS DEAD.

Harri’s eyes flew open. She propped herself up but moved slowly. Her stomach ached from where Bellatrix’s curse had hit ( _Bellatrix- shrieking. Voldemort- “...failed me…” a flash of green light)_. 

She was in the hospital wing. Harri looked desperately from side to side. Through the dim of early morning light, she could make out lumps in the other beds adjacent to her own. She could even see Hermione’s wild hair peaking out. Harri counted the beds. Five. There were five other students in the hospital wing. They were all alive. 

Relief flooded through her. At the very least Harri running to the Ministry hadn’t killed anyone else ( _the look of mingled fear and surprise on her godfather’s wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil. The way it fluttered briefly as if in a wind)_.

Harri had to see Dumbledore. 

Gingerly, Harri slid off the bed. Pain shot through her as she straightened, but it was manageable if she braced herself with her arms wrapped around her stomach. With painstaking slowness, Harri crept from the Hospital Wing and down two flights of stairs. Every step down made her stomach feel like it was about to split. She limped along the second floor until she came to the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore’s office. 

It occurred to Harri that Dumbledore might not be back in the castle. What if he was still on the run? Would the Death Eaters at the Ministry be enough for Fudge to listen to Dumbledore? The question was answered for her with the gargoyle sprung aside to reveal the man himself. 

“How-?”

“Madame Pomfrey alerted me that you had gone missing, my dear,” Dumbledore explained. “She will be quite cross with me if I do not return you to the Hospital Wing forthwith.”

“Wait! Wait- no. I need-”

Dumbledore did not try to lead back to the Hospital Wing. Instead, he steered her onto the moving staircase. “I suppose she will have to be irate,” Dumbledore said as they moved up. “There are things between us that have been left unsaid for too long.” 

“Yes!” Harri exclaimed moving into the office, “Voldemort- you have to know what he did! I don’t know if you can use it, but maybe we can. Maybe we can stop him.”

“Harri,” Dumbledore said rather too gently for her taste, “It was not difficult to deduce what was done to you by Voldemort. Let me make clear, hurting you will do nothing to the Dark Lord. It will only cause you needless pain.”

Needless pain. Like the pain Harri had caused everyone by rushing off to the Ministry. Harri looked down at the carpet. “Madam Pomfrey is patching everybody up,” said Dumbledore. “Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St. Mungo’s, but it seems that she will make a full recovery. 

Shame and anger burned through her. So much damage had occurred, all as a result of Harri’s actions.

“I know how you are feeling, Harri,” said Dumbledore very quietly.

“No, you don’t,” said Harri, and her voice was suddenly loud and strong. White-hot-anger leapt inside her. Dumbledore knew _nothing_ about her feelings. 

“You see, Dumbledore?” said Phineas Nigellus slyly. “Never try to understand the students. They hate it-”

“That is enough, Phineas,” said Dumbledore. “Harriet, let me tell you a story."

"I don't want a story," Harri snapped.

"Yet, I will tell you anyway. There once was a young boy and a young girl, who were left in the charge of their brother. A man with few scruples full of anger and bitterness. He was... distracted by the appearance of a new and powerful man to their small community. The two men dreamed of being invincible. For two months the insanity grew, and the two children were quite neglected. Reality returned in the form of the rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable younger brother. The brothers argued, and a fight ensued. The Gellert joined in. At the end of it the young girl, my sister Ariana, lay dead upon the floor. The victim of a stray curse.” 

“Your… your sister?”

“My sister Ariana was unstable. I resented her horribly after our mother died. All my grand plans for after Hogwarts were put on hold because she needed round the clock care. So you see- I do know what you are feeling. Was it my curse that hit Ariana? Aberforth’s? Or was it Grindlewald’s?”

The name rang a bell. “But you defeated Grindelwald. There was no mention of your sister-”

“I captured Gellert in 1945. The first duel between us was in 1899.

“Oh”

A shared grief stood between them. Harri felt limited in what she could say. Of what she could do. It was her fault that Sirius was dead. So what if Dumbledore understood? It didn’t change anything. 

“I don’t want to talk about how I feel,” she said at last.

“Harri, suffering like this is part of being human.”

“THEN- I- DON’T- WANT- TO- BE- HUMAN!” Harri roared, and she seized one of the delicate silver instruments from the spindle-legged table beside her and flung it across the room. The exertion shot pain through her and Harri collapsed onto the floor into pitiful sobs. “I don’t care,” she cried, “I’ve had enough, I’ve seen enough, I want out, I want it to end, I don’t care anymore-”

Dumbledore sank to the ground beside her. A hand on her shoulder, then she was pulled into an embrace. “You do care,” said Dumbledore. “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”

It was the wrong description. “He’s inside me now,” Harri continued to sob. “His blood, my blood, it’s all one mishmash. Why is this happening? Why is he doing this to me? I don’t want it.”

“Harri… there is something you must know. Something that still lays between us. You must understand, it is my fault that Sirius died. Or I should say almost entirely my fault- I will not be so arrogant as to claim responsibility for the whole. Sirius was a brave, clever, and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger. Nevertheless, you should never have believed for an instant that there was any necessity for you to go to the Department of Mysteries tonight. If I had been open with you, Harri, as I should have been, you would have known a long time ago that Voldemort might try and lure you to the Department of Mysteries, and you would never have been tricked into going there tonight. And Sirius would not have had to come after you. That blames lies with me, and with me alone.”

Harri gazed up at Dumbledore, hardly breathing, listening yet barely understanding what she was hearing. 

“Voldemort… he said the same thing. He told me that you didn’t want me to get the prophecy because you lo-” Harri cut off, embarrassed. This old man was comforting her tenderly. Was taking the blame for her actions. Was trying his very best to be truthful with her. When Harri had done nothing to prove herself trustworthy lately. When Harri raced, bullheaded as always, into danger damning the consequences for anyone else.

“Ah,” Dumbledore released her, looking at her through his half-moon glasses. He regarded her much the same way Voldemort had done before he stunned her.

“I don’t-”

“I have cared about you too much,” Dumbledore said simply. “I have cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I have acted exactly as Voldemort told you, Harriet. Exactly the way Voldemort expects we fools who love to act. Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have not want to save you from more pain than you have already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and how you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands. Love Harri, is the downfall of us all.” 

“I still don’t understand.” 

“Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since he realized the extent of the connection the two of you share, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how you could destroy him.”

The sun had risen fully now. Dumbledore’s office was bathed in it. The glass case in which the sword of Godric Gryffindor resided gleamed white and opaque. 

“The prophecy’s smashed,” Harri said blankly. “I was pulling Neville up those benches in the- the room where the archway was, and I ripped his robes and it fell…”

“The thing that smashed was merely the record of the prophecy kept by the Department of Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly.”

“Who heard it?” asked Harri, though she thought she knew the answer already. 

“I did,” said Dumbledore. “On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog’s Head Inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave.”

Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past Harri to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes’ perch. He bent down and slid back a catch, and took from inside it the shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges, in which Harri had seen her father tormenting Snape. Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. He sat back down behind the desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip. 

A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sibyll Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harri had heard her use once before.

“THE ONE WHO WILL CAUSE THE DOWNFALL OF THE DARK LORD APPROACHES… BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES… AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HER AS HIS EQUAL, BUT SHE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT… THE SEPTIES BOND WILL TIE THEM TOGETHER… A DOWNFALL OF THE DARK LORDS OWN MAKING… BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES”

The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished. 

The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore nor Harri nor any of the portraits made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent. 

“Professor Dumbledore?” Harri asked very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring at the Pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. “It… did that mean… what did that mean?”

“It meant,” said Dumbledore, “that the person who has the only chance of defeating Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July nearly sixteen years ago. This girl would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times.”

Harri felt as though something was closing in on her. Her breathing seemed difficult again. 

“It means- me?”

“Voldemort did not know it was you. He made a choice, not knowing that it was a girl that the prophecy referred to. He only heard the first half, you see. He chose between yourself and Neville Longbottom.” 

“Then- it might not be me?” said Harri.

“I am afraid,” said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, “that there is no doubt that it _is_ you. Voldemort himself ‘marked’ you as his equal.”

“But I’m not! I’m just a girl!”

“You have escaped him not once, but four times so far.”

“He let me go two of those times! He let me go, not because of any special power of mine.”

“Lord Voldemort realized at the graveyard that he had transferred powers to you. He realized that to kill you would hurt himself.” 

“What?”

“What Voldemort transferred to you, now that he knows of it, is a part of himself that he refuses to destroy. In fact, he will do everything in his power to keep his power safe.” 

“Anything…” Harri whispered looking down at her hand at the rune carved there. 

“Indeed. Voldemort has now bound you to him for the third time.”

“The third time?” Harri gasped. “No! That’s- no.”

“Your blood is in him, his blood is in you. And a piece of Voldemort’s power lies inside you evermore. There would be ways to destroy it, but I cannot.” Was Harri imagining a tear glistening in Dumbledore’s eye?

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CANNOT? Of course you can! Do it! Whatever it is!” 

“It would mean your death, Harriet.” Dumbledore said it calmly, almost blankly. “Do not ask me to kill you, for I cannot.” 

Harri felt chilled. Killed. The only way to get rid of whatever Voldemort had done to her was through death. 

“Take heart, Harri. The prophecy speaks of a Septies Bond, a seven-fold connection. Such a bond seems to be the source of his downfall.” 

“I DON’T WANT to be tied to Voldemort seven times over!” Harri exclaimed. What _more_ was there. How much more could he do to her?

“But he will certainly do it,” and the gleam in Dumbledore’s eye was harder than it had been all morning. “He will do anything to protect the power he has left inside of you. _Sanguinis Participes_ is a confirmation of what I have suspected since you told me what occurred in Little Hangleton. As he binds you closer, his doom will draw nearer.” 

“Professor… what else could he do? I don’t- I still don’t understand.” 

“I can think of several ways Voldemort might seek to bind you closer together. One such bond… I have hope that it won’t come to that. But beware, Harriet. One day Voldemort may do his best to goad you into killing. To take a bit of your power and put it in himself.”

“I wouldn’t kill anyone,” Harri said, looking down. She thought of Bellatrix Lestrange and the desire she had felt to make her scream. To cause the madwoman pain. 

“I do not like to say so, but we all have within us the capacity to kill. I have told you this before, Harriet, but it is our choices that show what we are. Voldemort knows how you act in the name of _love_. He will manipulate that aspect of your personality for his gain.”

Hermione’s face bloomed in her mind’s eye. Ron’s. Neville’s. Ginny’s. Luna’s. What wouldn’t she do to keep them safe? What wouldn’t she do to keep any student at Hogwarts safe if she knew they were in danger? Any friend? Any child? 

“I wouldn’t kill anyone,” Harri repeated, but the words felt like a lie even as she said them. 

**June 23, 1998**

At his own convenience (perhaps not at all) had lasted seventeen days. It wasn’t that Harri wanted Voldemort to come back, it was just a long time to not speak to another person. Another person who could respond anyways. 

She and Teddy had fallen into a pattern, one where Harri finally felt like she was catching her breath in infant childcare. Teddy had only peed on her twice, she had only cried from exhaustion four times, and she had finally figured out a way to stay active without leaving the baby unsupervised. 

Harri Potter had always been known for her physical prowess. From the Quidditch Pitch to physically ducking and dodging during Dueling Practice, Harri was athletic, to say the least. Very prone to the negative effects of pent up energy, Harri needed things to do with her hands. Gardening helped, and she could manage that with Teddy strapped to her or on a blanket next to her in the sun. But what Harri really needed more than anything was a run. A full out sprint that she just couldn’t manage while wearing Teddy. 

Thankfully, Teddy was starting to get on a schedule, something the baby book highly recommended. He was generally awake for an hour and a half before it was time to put him down for his nap again. The naps sometimes were only thirty minutes, but they were starting to stretch to over an hour. Plenty of time to exercise if only there was a way to ensure Teddy’s safety. Well, thank Magic, there was. There was an audio charm she could cast so that she would hear Teddy while not in the same room. As soon as he woke up and started squirming around, Harri would hear him even from slightly outside the house. 

Harri had cleared a four hundred meter track in the back of the house. It would be boring to run exclusively in circles, but she would never be more than a minute away from Teddy. It still left her incredibly paranoid that something, anything, could go wrong. But from the safety of his crib and with the anti-SIDS and audio charms on him, really nothing bad could happen. Plus running, flat out sprinting, did her a world of good. 

When not dealing with her pent up energy, Harri had taken to a very Hermione-like line of work and started reading from the bookshelf Voldemort had provided her. The seventh-year textbooks were there, which she and Hermione had worked through while alone in the tent, but the rest were just above Hogwarts level. Clearly not on the level of Voldemort himself, but the type of books that any post-Hogwarts student might study to expand their knowledge past the NEWTs. Harri was looking in the Runic books Voldemort had left behind. Defense would have been more interesting, but Harri needed a ritual. Harri needed Runes. 

Harri had signed up for Ancient Runes at Hogwarts with Hermione instead of Divination. After years of reading Horoscopes for Aunt Petunia out of the paper (and then having her Aunt scoff that they were nonsense), Harri didn’t hold much interest in Divination. The easy O was appealing, but not appealing enough to sit through nonsense. Ancient Runes ranked somewhere in the middle of Harri’s favorite classes. She liked it well enough, but Defense was where her talents lay. With Charms coming in a cheerful second. Harri was no whiz like Hermione, but she studied enough. Her marks weren’t bad. 

Not bad wouldn’t be good enough anymore. Harri needed to be brilliant because she needed to find a ritual that would protect Teddy from Voldemort. Xenia was all well and good, but who knew how many rights Harri _actually_ had in the eyes of the wards. Voldemort had said so himself, for now, he considered her a guest. But a hostage would be a very different situation ( _prisoner… war spoil)_. If it was based on how Voldemort _viewed_ her, then Harri would need to find some sort of protection for Teddy that was not Harri dependent. The trouble was, she barely knew where to start. 

Harri took scratched out moments during naps and when Teddy went to sleep at night to try and find something _anything_ that would ensure that he was safe. Safe was hard to define in itself. Was safe more closely tied to Harri? She could always magically adopt him. Something worth doing at some point, but not necessarily useful for stoping Voldemort from doing harm to the boy. No, what she needed was a way to get Voldemort’s skin in the game. Make it so that it was dangerous or ill-advised for Voldemort to hurt Teddy. One way to manage that would be to get Voldemort to magically adopt Teddy. Guardians weren’t able to kill or cause permanent injury to their charges, that would well and truly break Voldemort’s Hearth Wards. The only issue was… if Voldemort adopted Teddy then he would be able to determine where Teddy was living. It would need to be within a home that Voldemort owned, but it wouldn’t necessarily have to be with Harri. 

Which left Harri with blood. Something she had in abundance thanks to Lord Voldemort. Blood that was neither her blood or his blood- but _their_ blood. A unique component that could be adapted to several rituals. She didn’t even need Voldemort present to have him magically connected to Teddy. After all, she had his blood and she had his soul. 

It was with great trepidation that Harri stood before an altar on the night of Litha with Teddy delicately laid before her. The alter was a new addition, but Harri had sanctified it under the full moon of the 10th. It would be alright, Harri thought, it would have to be. 

She took a knife in her hand and carved the rune Wunjo (for joy) onto her left palm. Then she recarved the Eihwaz that Voldemort had cut two years earlier. He was represented by Yew, and the feeling of accepting the child into his home would be represented by Joy. Or at least, that was what Harri was putting into the ritual. She was loath to mark Teddy in any way, but it was necessary. Carefully, with the blood that had dripped down her palms, Harri painted a Sol rune that matched her own onto his chest, just above his heart. 

Then she began to chant. 

The ritual Harri had decided to go with was an old one from the Pax Roman days. It was a binding oath that so long as a conquered people kept their word, their hostage child could not be harmed. Harri and Voldemort were bound by their unbreakable bond- a Pax used even in the Roman days. Harri was tying Teddy to their Pax. He was now the hostage, and so long as Harri kept her word, Teddy would be protected from any harm that Voldemort might try to inflict. The Sol marked Teddy as Harri’s protected child (and the shiny new scar on Teddy’s chest matched the one on Harri’s forehead to perfection). Harri hadn’t quite figured out how to ensure that Teddy wasn’t taken elsewhere by Voldemort, but she could at least be assured that he could not harm the child. 

When it was done Harri scooped up the crying baby and held him close, trying to soothe him after the rush and burn of magic he had felt. The walk back to the cottage was short. The glen of her new alter was less than half a mile from the house. It was a very dark night. There was no moon, and Harri had only the stars and her illuminated wand to guide her. 

She was in no way surprised to find Voldemort sitting in an armchair when she entered the house. She had suspected that he would feel the burn of ritual magic. She wasn’t surprised at the anger that was clear in his face, his handsome features twisted with fury. No, she knew this was coming. He would have felt the alteration of their Unbreakable Vow. Had he been able to feel the power she had used from their shared blood? 

“ _Put the child in his crib_ ,” he hissed out in Parseltongue. A cold feeling washed over her. He rarely spoke to her in Parseltongue. The last time… the last time had not been pleasant at all ( \ _You have ruined everything, you stupid girl. Do you understand what you have wrought? CRUCIO)_.

The child in question had thankfully cried himself to sleep on the walk back to the cottage. It was past midnight now, and Teddy had started being able to go till three before waking up. She wondered if that would be enough time to recover from whatever Voldemort decided to do to her. The Cruciatus Curse could leave her shaking for hours, barely able to hold a teacup let alone a baby. 

Harri laid Teddy down and returned to the sitting room. Voldemort had stood, and was pacing furiously. He rounded on her when he heard her enter the room. “What have you done _!?”_ Voldemort demanded and he flipped his palm up for Harri to see a carved Wunjo. The same carving Harri had upon her own left palm. 

That was… unexpected. 

“It was a Pax Binding,” Harri explained worriedly. “I- I tied Teddy to our bond.” 

“I realize that you did so, Harriet. Did you think I would not feel the alteration of our vow?” Voldemort hissed, “What I would like to know is why you chose a Wunjo rune instead of the standard Jera.” 

“Jera would make the ritual only lasts for a year,” Harri explained stubbornly. “Wunjo has much closer associations with family. It won’t have a time limit.”

“I did not consent, Harriet Potter, to adopt a child with you. I am no father or white knight protector. I will not be bound by a half-baked ritual performed by a school girl who doesn’t have a single NEWT to her name!” The decorative vase over the fireplace shattered. 

“Adopt?” Harri questioned, freezing. That hadn’t been her intention at all. Adopt was the very thing she had tried to avoid. Adopt gave Voldemort as many rights over Teddy as _she_ had.

“Would you believe me if I said it was an accident?” Harri tried cautiously. 

Voldemort’s furry was not cut by her sheepish grin. If anything, his anger was an all-consuming vortex, filling the room with heavy and dark energy. Harri forced her spine to stay straight. What had he expected her to do? She had had the means to bind Voldemort to Teddy, to ensure the child’s safety. Of course she was going to take advantage of that. She would have been a fool not to. 

“I think, my dear Harriet,” Voldemort said in a silky smooth tone that could only denote trouble, “that I have been far too lenient with you. I admit I have found you amusing in the past. Now… now I think it is time you learn what it means to cross Lord Voldemort.” 


End file.
